Burying the 'stache

The fella with the messed-up mustache pictured in the post below this one requested -- wait, begged and pleaded -- earlier tonight that I remove him from his perch at the top of my page. For the record, by hitting the PUBLISH POST button on this entry I'm not trying to appease him, not in the least. I'm saving the rest of you from having to stare at his frightening face every time you check in to the daily runaround.

Now that I've done my good deed for the day, let's talk training for a bit. Cross training, to be specific, since it's taken up a good chunk of my time the last seven weeks and looks to be a permanent part of my overall training program moving forward.

First things first. I haven't been killing it in the pool since the boo boo on my backside manifested itself on October 1. I've done one 2-hour pool run and treaded water for a solid 90 minutes this morning, but any other deep-water escapades have been in the range of one hour and have been few and far between. That said, I have been making more frequent use of the shallow end of the pool for 10 minutes worth of drills - high knees, quick feet, butt kicks, backward running - a couple times a week.

My preferred mode of non-impact aerobic activity is the spin bike. Honestly, I'm really starting to like that fucking thing. I've been getting in the saddle 5-6 times a week for 45-75 minutes at a whack, even attending organized classes Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings to get a few organized harder efforts in. I like that I can stand up on the pedals and mimic running to some degree, put my heartrate through the roof and leave a sick puddle of sweat on the floor when all is said and done. My hope is that when I'm back to running regularly again on land I can make use of the Spinner 2-4 days a week in place of recovery runs and/or secondary workouts if necessary.

And, hold the phones, I've been lifting M-W-F for the last two weeks. All I'll say about that is the whole routine takes me about 30 minutes and I'm gonna be jacked before you know it. Justin Lutz better watch out.

Is any of this advancing my fitness? Time will tell, but my early guess is probably not and I'm OK with that. Seriously. I'm not putting in Ian Nurse-like hours in the pool or on the bike, but I am doing more than enough to stay less fat during my layoff and smooth the transition when I am able to return to running, which believe it or not is right around the corner. To say I'm about as excited as a pig in shit would be a gross understatement.